Diary of a Two Day Genius
by templremus1990
Summary: Excerpts from the diary of a fifteen year old pupil at Deffry Vale High School. The new headmaster seems to be everywhere and pupils keep disappearing from lessons. Still, the school dinners are popular...


**Diary of a two-day genius**

**Monday 21st January**

We have a new headmaster, Mr Finch. Sasha thinks he looks like Dracula, but I think Dracula probably had better teeth. His voice is just plain creepy too; it sounds like you think a snake would sound just before it decides to bite you. I'm glad only the older classes get taught by him.

He sat us all down in assembly and gave us the usual boring talk about standards and aims and new rules. The weird thing was, everyone was actually listening. I tried to whisper to Sasha, but she was just staring at him like she was scared stiff, or hypnotised, or both. I shut my eyes and hummed Britney songs to myself until he shut up. I probably looked like a total idiot, but at least I didn't have to hear his weird drawl or look at his thin grey hair. He even _wears_ it like Dracula, actually. Maybe Sasha's right, and we'd better start eating the garlic bread at dinner like she says. Just in case.

**Tuesday 22nd January**

All the teachers are gone!

Well, almost all of them, anyway. I was hoping we were going to get a few days off, but no, Mr Vladamir Creepy Finch has to find replacements straight away. All the dinner ladies are new now, and all the lower school teachers. I'm glad we still have Mr Whitehead teaching us most of the time. He might be ancient, but at least he doesn't care whether or not we complain about Freaky Finch. In fact, he even joins in, as long as he thinks no-one's in the class next door.

The dinner ladies are real cows. The food's just as greasy as it always was, but now they keep trying to push chips on us the whole time, rather than letting us choose. I keep pestering Mum to let me take sandwiches, but she says the new meals are all free, so I have to go. I just fill up on milkshake and have a large snack at home when no-one's looking; all that stodgy junk-food stuff makes me feel sick.

**Sunday 27th January**

Stayed in this weekend, mooching around and doing nothing. I used to always have a tonne of homework, but Mr Whitehead seems to have pretty much given up on all of us now. I can see why: all the clever people are having private lessons with the new Maths head, Mr Wagner. Not sure why they're only letting them use the computers; would have thought it'd make more sense to give them to the thick people, make learning fun or whatever.

Me and Sasha went out this afternoon to go swimming, and had hot chocolate afterwards. She wanted chips, but I'm beginning to get the feeling I never want to look at another chip again.

**Thursday 14th February**

Oops, sorry I haven't written in ages, but I've been off with flu; real flu, not whatever was wrong with all those teachers who disappeared at the start of term, and then I had a truckload of work to catch up on. Trust me to get sick when everyone else is all bright-eyed and cheerful. Still, nearly weekend!!!

I'm looking forward to it, too; everyone's got much quieter since the new headmaster arrived. We don't hang around in the dining room like we used to; it's sit, swallow and get out.

I told the dinner lady I was allergic to potatoes today in order to stop her spooning a load of chips onto my plate. She looked at me like I'd grown wings or something. I thought better keep my head down for a while, so I'm going to hang out in the playground at lunch break for the next week or so. They've got posters up all round the school telling us to 'Eat More Chips'. I thought that was illegal, and that we're all supposed to be eating salad and fruit and stuff. Still, this school's never been good at keeping up with things.

**Saturday 17th February**

So much for my lunch-time avoidance plan. I got joined on the first day by this fat kid called Kenny with glasses. He says he's in my class, but all I can say is I've never noticed him. Apparently his mother's told him not to eat the chips (I can see why, to be honest), and he got sick of being treated like garbage by the dinner ladies too. He's nice, I suppose, but definitely not someone I would want to be seen with, so I made some lame excuse and went to hide in the toilets instead. I swear I'm going to go in there one day and get pounced on by the skinny woman who's supposed to make sure we clear our plates, but thankfully she hasn't noticed me yet. I'm going to try and get Sasha to join me next time.

**Tuesday 20th February**

Sasha came and hung out with me at lunchtime today. Was quite fun, I suppose. We tried to creep round the back to see what's going on with the new wing of classrooms, but there were loads of big-looking workmen wandering around, so we didn't stay long. No idea where they got the money for these buildings, all of a sudden; I've been signing the petition for a new library for _ages. _Bet I won't get to use the rooms once they're done, though; they'll only be for the 'top pupils'.

My flu-y symptoms came back this afternoon, so I went up to the school nurse. She's another new one, too, and just as scary. She also barely knows how to hold a thermometer; God knows how she got the job. She weighed me, too, like I was some kind of animal or something. I got annoyed and told her I've got flu, I'm not about to be sold and eaten. She just grinned at me, and I got so freaked out I ran, only to regret it later when the aspirin wore off. Not going back there if I can help it, though.

**Monday 26th February**

When we came back after the weekend we found all the computers had been taken out of the IT department. Apparently they're all being upgraded ready for when the new classrooms are built, but the new IT head Mr Sampson says they have no idea how long that's going to take, and we all quickly found out that you just don't argue with Mr Sampson, unless you want your head bitten off. Wish we were allowed laptops.

**Friday 3rd March**

Another very odd week. We had a whole load of school inspectors arrive on Wednesday, so the whole place was spotless, and they took down all those 'Chip' posters. We didn't actually see them do any inspecting, though, and their cars were still there in the evening, though they were gone the next day. Finch stalked around the whole place looking slippery and creepy, as usual. I'm going to start asking Mum if I can change schools at the end of the year. I'm trying to persuade Sasha into joining me, though she has more friends than I do, so it's going to be hard work.

**Wednesday 5th March**

Mum's been going on and on at me recently. She can't believe I never have any homework, and she seems to think I'm looking too pale. I didn't dare tell her it's cos I don't eat lunch any more; I'd never hear the end of it. I made up some excuse about flu, but that one's wearing a bit thin now, especially as I haven't had a temperature in ooh, a good fortnight. She'd better not go running to the headmaster about it; I'm pretty sure he'd quite happily eat her alive.

Sasha completely flunked on me about the whole new-schools thing. She says her Mum is making her stay until she's done GCSEs. We had a bit of an argument, actually, and she's started walking around with Sue Maynard again, like she did the last time we fell out. She can anyway, for all I care. It's not like we actually talk about anything other than school anymore.

**Sunday 9th March**

Sasha came round to my house yesterday evening and hung around the kitchen till I came down. I was planning to ignore her, but it is impossible to ignore Sasha when she's in self-pitying mode. Plus she stood in front of the fridge when I tried to get a Coke and did her puppy-dog face, which always makes me collapse into giggles. We ended up going out to the cinema together and sharing the world's biggest tub of popcorn, and for a bit it was just like being nine again. We're back on for hanging out at break, as long as I promise to let Sue down gently and stop going on about Mr Finch, which might be a problem as I can't seem to talk about anything else right now.

**Friday 14th March**

They're saying one of the girls lower down the school has disappeared. I think it's just another stupid rumour; since we all stopped going to assembly there have been all kinds of crazy stories going round. All the same, I think I'm going to start sticking in groups a bit more, even if it means having to put up with Sue M, who's still latching onto Sasha like some kind of limpet.

**Thursday 20th March**

I swear Mr Finch is everywhere. He seems to think staircases exist just so he can stand at the stop of them and stare down on us. It was funny at first, but now it's getting bloody scary, it means no-one likes to walk the corridors in groups either. I miss being able to say whatever we liked about the teachers in between lessons.

Still, I'm getting to be an expert at passing notes now. Sasha says we ought to hollow out a few pencils so's we can store rolled up pieces of paper inside them, but we pointed out that no-one is going to be bored enough to sit down and carve pencils for the entire school. Though I dunno, give me another month or two like this and I'll probably be ready to try anything. Thank god it's nearly the holidays.

**Monday 24th March**

This'll probably be my last entry for a bit, as we break up on Thursday. I'm going to stay with Aunt Lucy, and she's got three very small and very annoying kids as well as God knows how many cats, so I'm going to leave the diary at home where it can't get read/torn/slobbered on. We get an extra-long holiday this year so they can finish all the building work. Maybe Freaky Finch isn't too bad after all!

We're _still_ not allowed in the new computer room, though I can see from the outside that it's going to be massive, bigger than the school hall. Not quite sure why they need to fit the whole school into a room for a computer lesson, but I suppose it means we'll get to do loads more projects than we used to, and anything's better than sitting staring at some of the teachers we've got now.

See you the other side of Easter!

**Monday 14th April**

We have a new form master all of a sudden. He's weird, even weirder than the others, if such a thing's possible. Sasha and I had a good laugh over his outfit. What kind of teacher wears _Converse _with a suit anyway, for God's sake?

He's good looking, though. He looks younger than all the others, and he actually smiles, too, a big goofy grin that makes all the other girls smile right back (the boys just look bored, as usual). At break time Sasha dared me to go up to him and ask for extra science help, even though I hate science and totally switch off as soon as anyone even mentions it. I hung around in the school yard, trying not to get hit by the boy's basketball game, but he was in the corner with this new dinner lady the whole time. They looked like they were having a really deep talk, too, so I didn't want to interrupt. She's different from the rest, as well; she's blonde and pretty, whereas all the others look like they've just eaten a lemon whole. I bet they're going out, and that's how she got the job, though I can't imagine Finch even knowing what the word 'girlfriend' means.

They've finished the work on the new computer rooms now. I haven't been inside yet, because only the top class study there, but I can tell from the outside that it's massive. Before they just started putting computers in all the classrooms except ours (the one for idiots), but now it looks like the whole school could have a lesson together. I'd like to try them out, but it looks like the lessons are going to mean putting up with Mr Wagner, and Sasha and I agreed that it's just not worth it.

_10 p.m_

Just had a long talk- make that rant- from Mum. Apparently Mr Finch called her up to say that I have been 'a disruptive influence in class', and haven't been going to lunch either (surprise, surprise.) Mum being Mum, she was more concerned about the eating bit than the lessons bit. So now I have to check in with the chief dinner lady- the one who looks like she hasn't had a good meal in about a month herself- every time there's a lunch break, which means I won't be able to avoid the prefects who make sure you clear your plate. I was going to complain, but Mum had that look on her face which meant she sure as hell wasn't going to take any crap from me, so I shut up and just pretended to read a book instead.

Bet I'll be drowning in chips by the end of the week.

**Wednesday 17th April**

Milo collapsed in Maths class today!

I was sitting in the row in front of him, actually paying attention for once, because we had Mr Wagner, and if you don't listen to Mr Wagner you'll be outside the Headmaster's office before you've even put down your pen. Milo was putting up his hand to every single question like he always does, with everyone else looking utterly clueless around him. Then I heard a loud thump, and suddenly all the girls behind me were screaming and Mr Wagner was shouting something that definitely wasn't English. He just picked Milo up and slung him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes or something before walking out. Milo's eyes were horrible, though; they were open, but completely blank, like they were made of glass. He actually looked _dead_, though the teachers were saying later he just passed out from overwork. No-one believes a word of that, though.

There is definitely something weird about those school dinners. The chips taste greasy, but not ordinary greasy, and kind of spicy too. They don't really fill you up, either. Lucky the portions are so big; everyone else had second helpings.

Feeling a bit icky now, though. My head seems to be full of ants and I can't get the taste out of my mouth. I'm gonna have an early night, see if I feel better in the morning.

**Friday 19th April**

3.00 a.m

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**Saturday 20th April**

School got destroyed yesterday afternoon. Massive headache; not too sure about much else.

A nice lady-journalist came round at about six and asked to interview me, though I'm not sure I was a lot of use. She said she was writing a report for the national newspaper, and asked me all these impossible maths questions, though I couldn't answer any of them.

This diary looks a real mess now. I don't even remember writing half of it, and for some reason there are numbers all over the rest of the pages. The woman said something about an allergic reaction to the oil in those chips. That makes sense, anyway, though I still can't quite work out why that would mean the school blew up. She gave me her number, said I should call her if I remember anything, or just want to talk, though I don't think I will. She's just as weird as the rest of them, though at least she doesn't look like she wants to eat me.

I want to call Sasha, but Mum has spent the past three hours on the phone ringing up everyone of her friends who knows me (and a good few who don't) to reassure them that I'm alive, which is a bit pointless really as most of them don't even know what school I go to.

_11.p.m_

Just got off the phone to Sasha. She's as mad as hell because she's been off with an ear infection the past two days and missed seeing the school explode. She asked me about a million questions about it, but I was more disturbed by the fact that I couldn't remember her not being there on Wednesday, let alone most of what happened yesterday. She did seem a bit upset I didn't phone her earlier, actually. Must go round tomorrow to make up.

We had fun coming up with a great long list of Things We Won't Miss About Deffry Vale, though it all got a bit teary towards the end. I actually found myself missing skipping lunch, even though I was always complaining about it at the time.

We both promised to start pestering the parents about going to Beechwood Comprehensive ASAP, and that if only one of us got accepted we would agree to meet up every weekend _without fail. _That got Sasha going again, so I hung up before I burst into tears too. Then I just sat down on my bed and burst into tears anyway, only to feel like a total idiot afterwards.

**Sunday 21st April**

Running out of space in this diary now; most of it's so scribbled over I'm having to write down the margins.

I don't normally finish diaries properly. They just sort of stop when I get bored. This time, though, I want to do it properly, before I put it away and forget all about it.

Hopefully, anyway.

_Notes to self:_

_-Get new diary_

_-Find out if Kenny's still alive_

_-Pass entrance exams_

_-Throw out old exercise books_

_-Buy decent pair of white Converse_


End file.
